After the war, the comics became harder in order to appeal to an adult readership. In the climate of the McCarthy era, this provoked a crusade against comics and their corrosive effect on young people. Knigge sees this as a bourgeois defence against a youth subculture that is not understood. A turning point in the development of comics came in 1954 with the publication of Fredric Wertham's book "Seduction of the innocent", which attributed a particularly brutalising effect to comics among modern mass media. As a result, the comic book industry was able to pre-empt government intervention by founding an association for voluntary self-regulation and adopting the Comics Code. The code included the renunciation of vulgar language, swearing and the display of narcotics and intoxicants, as well as the commitment that good will always prevail in the end, criminals will not live in luxury and sexual relationships will not be shown. Each issue must be submitted to the Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA) for review. Approved comics receive a seal, comics without a seal are rejected by retailers. As a result, half of the comic books cease publication. Disney comics are able to maintain their position. As a result, the infantilisation of comic books ensures that they are pushed into children's rooms for the next 30 years. From 1980 onwards, the CMAA seal loses its significance.

As a reaction to the market slump, publishers developed superheroes from 1961 onwards, who also had to deal with everyday problems and were thus intended to gain credibility. One superhero developed during this period is "Spiderman" (1962). After a brief slump in the popularity of the superhero with human features, which he suffers due to his excessive blandness in the midst of the transformations that the late 60s bring, he continues to dominate comics to this day.

Parallel to the development in the USA, a campaign against comics and their supposed effects, as well as against cultural alienation through the incorporation of American culture, also began in Germany. In 1954, the Federal Review Board for Publications Harmful to Young Persons was established, which primarily dealt with comics. During this time, alongside "Mickey Mouse" and "Fix und Foxi", the adventure comics by Hansrudi Wäscher ("Sigurd", "Nick", "Falk" and "Tibor") dominated the German comic market. As in the USA, the new regulations and the flattening of the comic genre led to a drop in sales in Germany.

In France, a comic code was created as early as 1949, which ensured that American comics had a hard time on the French market. The result was a relatively independent, intellectualised comic, the best-known product of which was "Asterix" (1961). In France, comics were categorised as the ninth art in 1971. In the years following the student protests, ambitious comics (by Caza, Druillet, Moebius) were created in the tradition of surrealist imagery. The comic avant-garde also founded its own publication organs, including the magazine "A Suivre", published in 1978, which set itself the task of creating a different kind of comic: real comic novels.